(코리아타운뉴스) English Learner Class … Can It Be Discriminatory?

LAUSD’s 2,000 Korean students are currently in EL
Parents butt heads over its effectiveness

What should parents do about their children’s English education in the United States? That is a question every first generation Korean parents in the immigrant community has asked, especially for primarily Korean-speaking families.

An elementary school on Third Street recently came under scrutiny after Korean-American students were allegedly discriminated against over his English class.

Parents of five children submitted a formal complaint to the Los Angeles Unified School District as they felt that the English Learner class the students were assigned to take was a form of discrimination.

The reception of the class among Korean parents is polarizing. As the controversy centering on the program continues to heat up, the Korea Daily reviews the reality of how the classes are conducted in elementary schools.

▶ Benefits vs. Discrimination
The English Learner (EL) program was created to serve the needs of students whose first language is not English.

However, the criticism on EL has been primarily about its alleged counterproductive effects. The belief among many parents of EL students is that the academic performances of their children have increasingly fallen behind that of the rest of the student bodies.

They also pointed to the alleged discrimination their children have been subjected to. That is the primary reason why the federal government as well as the State Board of Education issued a warning in January last year to all schools to bar any form of discrimination on students who are in the EL program.

Some immigrant parents of Korean students allege that the schools have assigned their children to EL by using the California English Language Development Test scores as the only measuring stick.

The parents went on to claim that the schools have gone against the instruction from the State Board of Education to create a division between EL students and the rest even though the previous warning clearly stated that they must remove and prevent any form of systematic division among the students.


▶ Korean parents are anxious
Among Korean mothers in their 30s to 40s, debating the effectiveness of EL has always been contentious. Some of them argue that there are schools that have tainted the purpose of English education with the EL program.

They suggested that their children were discriminated against at school. Their belief is that simply allowing EL students to take general English classes will help them to learn the language at a faster rate.

On the other hand, some parents support the purpose of the EL program. “My child lacks the English skills because we speak Korean at home,” said one mother of an EL student. “EL is actually more helpful to students like my child.”


▶ EL program
The EL program is required for all public schools in California by a federal law. It was created to teach English to students who do not speak the language within their households. The program began in 1974 when the federal court ruled that non-native students must be given a proper opportunity to learn English.

The message by the federal court and the State Board of Education in 2015 stipulated that teachers must provide language education that is tailored to the needs of the students and that EL students must be enrolled in same classes as other students as much as possible. Also, parents of EL students have the right to demand consultation with the school in their native languages.

There are currently around 150,000 students who are categorized as Asians or Pacific Islanders in the EL program of California’s public schools. Among them, Korean students take up about 12,000.

Schools are required by law to avoid dividing students by their language skills or ethnicities, while opportunities to take part in the magnet program should also be provided equally to all students.


By Hyoung Jae Kim